Investigation of germ caused by Guillain-Barré syndrome in poultry meat products in North West of Iran

Campylobacter species are the most important pathogens that cause bacterial gastroenteritis being spread through food with animal origin. Given such fact, the current study aimed at investigate the prevalence of Campylobacter based on phenotypic and genotypic analysis of poultry meat and edible offal in Western Azerbaijan. To conduct the study, a total of 552 chicken samples including meat (samples), liver (138 samples), gizzard (138 samples) and hearts (138 samples) were randomly collected from poultry slaughterhouses at West Azerbaijan province from April 2014 to September 2014. Based on the culture tests, 208 samples (37/7%) were contaminated with Campylobacter species. The highest range of Campylobacter species out breaks was observed in poultry liver (49/2%), followed by gizzard (42/8%), heart (33/3%) and meat (25/4%). Among the isolated Campylobacter, C. jejuni was the most prevalent (78/4%) and the rest were C. coli species (21/6%). All 208 species of Campylobacter isolated as C. jejuni and C. coli from species culturing were also approved by m.PCR. The results of the study pinpointed to the chicken edible offal importance as a potential source of Campylobacterial contamination.